NASA is going to return an ancient Mars rock to its home planet

Just released:

An incredibly old Martian relic will soon be headed back from the planet where it originated thanks to the Mars 2020 mission. The space agency
is planning
on taking a piece of the meteorite known as Sayh al Uhaymir (SaU008) and including it in their highly-anticipated rover adventure to the Red Planet.

The rock, which was part of a larger meteorite discovery back in 1999, is thought to have originated on Mars. A chunk of the planet is believed to have been blown off into space by an impact, and the debris found its way to Earth. Now it will play a vital role is helping to calibrate the scientific tools on board the all-new rover.

“Mars 2020’s goal is ambitious: collect samples from the Red Planet’s surface that a future mission could potentially return to Earth,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains. “One of the rover’s many tools will be a laser designed to illuminate rock features as fine as a human hair.” –
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